


Deadheads and Thorns

by Eristastic



Series: Under(fairy)tales [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6011443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eristastic/pseuds/Eristastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a prince fell asleep for a hundred years.</p><p>[Sleeping Beauty AU, for some reason]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deadheads and Thorns

**Author's Note:**

> I've been itching to do a proper Frisk/Flowey character study and this...didn't really go the way I thought it would...I'll have to try again with another fairy tale, clearly.
> 
> 'Cover page' can be found [here](http://eristastic.tumblr.com/post/144048295732/kind-of-cover-pages-for-my-fics-cloves-and).

“Go away. No one wants you here.”

Frisk looked at the flower blandly and kept on walking. It wasn’t like they could have turned away, even if they’d wanted to. They’d promised. They were going to be held to that until they fulfilled their part, or until they died.

The flower frowned, its expression a world apart from the sunny smiles it had shot their way before, back at the gates. They were past them now (the knife had been just where Chara had said, and it really had made cutting through those vines so much easier). Now they were waiting on the road for…for something. To catch their breath? They weren’t out of it, though.

But it had been a long enough walk to get to this abandoned castle that everyone avoided, that people only went to on horses with coats like spun gold or the brightest of stars. Romantic things like that. And Frisk didn’t have any of it: none of the polished armour, the jewel-embedded swords, the prophecies and the blessings that would guide a knight through the castle.

But they did have Chara.

That was something, at least.

They shifted the weight of their pack, let a hand stray to check that their knife was still in its makeshift sheath (it was, but they just needed to check), and they walked forwards.

The grounds were enormous, by anyone’s judgement. There was so far to walk before they even reached the main castle, prefaced by grassy slopes and skeleton trees that might have been sculpted into pretty shapes, once.

Now they just looked dead.

The most striking part about it all – beyond the thick woods surrounding the estate or the actual castle and its turrets glowing in the late-morning sun – was the vines. Of course it was the vines. It was difficult to ignore them when they were wrapped around everything, snaking around the ground to climb up every papery trunk, every gatepost and every wall they could find. It was unnerving, seeing how thick and green and glistening they were, sucking the life out of the castle. That was probably what had happened, actually.

“You’re not really going to go all that way are you?” There was a new flower, or the same one possibly, but sprouting out of a different vine. It was doing a good job of sounding like a different one, though, with that sickly sympathetic voice that sounded just a bit too much like all the people who’d told Frisk they had no business going out adventuring, at their age.

They considered letting Chara out to have some words with the flower, but decided against it. It was weird enough that the spirit could speak through them, through their body that couldn’t speak, but there was also the matter of Chara’s personality. So all in all, it was probably a bad idea. It had certainly been a bad idea the first time they’d let them out. Frisk hadn’t even known half of the words they’d said, just that they _sounded_ obscene and that was probably bad enough.

So they patted the flower on the head for its fake concern, and they went on walking.

“Just stop. It’s so far. It’s not worth it.”

The vines were covered in thorns, and the closer Frisk got to them, the more it looked like they were rippling. Like snakeskin.

‘ _Just stay on the path and ignore it_ ,’ Chara ordered, and they were more than happy to obey.

The flower kept popping up near them as they walked the long, monotonously straight path of sand and gravel that led to the castle (they hoped: they couldn’t actually see, but it would have been a cruel move to only have one path and make it lead somewhere else). Sometimes it just watched them, its golden petals turning until they were almost out of sight, and then it would sprout out of a vine a few paces in front of them and do the same thing again.

More often than not, it said things. Frisk really wished it wouldn’t.

“You’re not going to be able to save him, you know. You’re just a kid. You don’t even know how to end the curse.”

“I mean, did you even do any research before coming here? Or did you just set out and think ‘Wowee, I sure am feeling adventurous today! Wouldn’t it just be _swell_ if I rescued a prince and got me some glory?’?”

“Or maybe you just came here to die like the others. Did you not know about that? Oh, that’s wonderful! And so many people have died here too! Do you want to know how? I’ll tell you if you stop.”

“That’s not really playing the game, just so you know. It’s actually incredibly rude. Are you still ignoring me? I can see you’re trembling, you know! Maybe I should just use _these_ ,” a shudder along the vines surrounding the path, rippling the thorns, “and show you what you should really be afraid of!”

“And it won’t be easy even if you survive. You won’t find him, for a start. There are a hundred and one bedrooms alone in that castle. Sickening, isn’t it? The rich just love to show off their money, I guess. But you could spend your whole life in there and never find where he is. He’s not meant to be found.”

“No one will thank you for this, either. You think he’ll want to be woken up, a century after he fell asleep? Everyone he knows is dead. Why would anyone want to wake up to that?”

“No one wants him back, you know. Nobody wants royalty anymore. You, with that little mock-knife, that chainmail masquerading as armour, you were born far too late to be a knight.”

“You’re not suited to it, anyway. You know that, don’t you? You can _feel_ it. You know you could never hurt anyone.”

“And if you have to kill to save him? My oh my, what _will_ you do then?”

“You’re completely unnecessary here. Worthless. Hypocritical and superfluous and nobody needs you.”

“Get lost! I’m not kidding around here! Get _out_!”

Frisk walked for hours. They’d never met someone more trying than the flower (and never wanted to, either), but Chara was there with snide remarks and brisk reassurance when they faltered. They kept walking, for both of them, the flower’s words ringing in their head like church bells.

 

The castle was too high to be real, they thought. There was a moat, full of waterweed and sludge in the very bottom of the pit, and the stones were all covered in moss and weeds. And vines.

The flower looked furious. Its face was a mockery of a smile: all teeth and twisted facial features that really had no business on a flower in the first place. But its petals brightened up the place, at least.

That’s what Chara said, laughing about it to themself.

Heavy doors followed the rickety old bridge across the moat, but Frisk pushed them open without any trouble, just like Chara said they would. The wood was rotting, anyway. The portcullis behind it was rusted beyond recognition, like the life had been squeezed from it by the vines. Frisk cut them away and the metal broke easily.

The vines were even worse when they got into the courtyard. They were all over the ground, like the roots of a thick tree, but without any apparent effort to fit in. They didn’t sink into the stone: they just trapped it.

“Get out.” The flower was growling. “You’re disturbing something that nobody should disturb.”

Chara said something unrepeatable, locked up safely inside Frisk’s head.

It didn’t look like the vines were actually going to attack, even if the flower looked ready to, so Frisk walked into the first door they came to, and Chara stopped saying hideous things about where the flower could stick itself, switching to directions.

The inside of the castle was just as chained by vines as the outside, only it looked so much stranger when it was dusty furniture and not dying plants. Frisk didn’t pay it any attention. Nor did they pay any attention to how Chara grew strangely quiet until prompted for more directions. It was their business, not Frisk’s. Frisk just had their promise to fulfil.

“Oh, I get it!” the flower said cheerfully from beside a vase filled to the brim with dust. “You think you’re doing him a favour, don’t you? You think he wants to wake up.”

Frisk ignored it, hesitating to take a particularly unsafe-looking handrail up some stairs and eventually deciding to go without.

“You’re wrong, you know. He wouldn’t ever want to. Waking up means having to face all his responsibilities, all his…” it smirked, “losses.”

‘ _Frisk, do me a favour and pluck that thing for me_.’

Frisk didn’t. The flower popped up right in front of them, almost making them trip on the thin staircase.

“He’ll hate it. He’ll wake up, he’ll see what’s happened, and he’ll be the first to damn you. But I suppose that doesn’t matter to you? You just want to save someone, don’t you? It doesn’t matter to _you_ whether they want to be saved or not.”

Frisk bristled, but didn’t react. They hadn’t got this far in life by reacting to every mean thing people said about them, and they were…they were determined. Chara knew what they were about: Chara wouldn’t have asked them to do this if they weren’t _sure_.

“Oh, I can’t wait!” The flower laughed. “Do you think he’ll cry? He was always such a crybaby: I think he will. He’ll see all these people dead – his family, his friends, his people – and he’ll cry for days, probably!”

‘ _Frisk, use the knife_.’

“It’s all his fault too: that’s the best part! He’s responsible for everyone’s deaths! Only he and that wretched blood-traitor friend of his survived! And even they’re gone now. There’s just him: alone, guilty, ruined.” The flower leered at the top of the stairs, waiting for Frisk to climb up to meet it. “Is a prince like that even worth saving?”

‘ _Frisk! Kill it! I don’t fucking care, just kill it, rip it to pieces, that’s an_ order _!_ ’ Chara was screaming, their voice guttural and choked, and Frisk kept a firm grip on the control of their body.

Was a prince like that worth saving? Frisk didn’t know. The flower was still talking, more mockery and taunting, but it all rang so hollow in Frisk’s ears, just as hollow as Chara’s screams of anger.

They didn’t know if the prince was ‘worth’ saving or not, but they knew that they didn’t think they were the one who should get to choose that. That had always been made clear to them. They weren’t the one who made those kinds of decisions. All they knew was that they’d made a promise, and they were going to fulfil it. They had to.

Chara had told them which way to go to avoid the worst of the carnage (although it wasn’t likely to be so shocking, a century on) and they walked through back passages, up more and more staircases, only faltering when the vines were wrapped so tightly along the floor that they thought they might trip. They grabbed onto a faded tapestry to steady themself, leaving the air thick with dust, and they had to take a second to breathe.

And then they went on – the flower’s infernal voice in one ear, Chara’s hellish shouts in the other – through a corridor of rumbling green.

Their fingers were pricked, over and over. They crushed thorns under their boots, struggling to keep their balance on the vines that were thicker than their legs – thicker than their waist, in places. The only colour was the flashes of golden yellow as the flower moved, and they could feel themself tiring. They’d been walking for so long, their muscles were shaking, their feet aching, the cuts on their hands smarting, and they fell rather than walked through the small door at the end of the hall.

When they picked themself up off the ground, the first thing they noticed was the startling lack of green. There were no vines here: only dust and the dull shine of once-shiny wood.

And there was a bed, too. Curtains hung down from it like spider-webs, glowing grey in the light streaming through the window. Inside their head, Chara shut up abruptly, leaving Frisk on their own. Even the flower had stopped talking. They turned, to see if it was even still there, but it was, watching them.

Its expression was one of helpless resignation, dressed up as contempt. “You really think he’s going to welcome you as a hero, don’t you? You really think he’s going to be grateful. You stupid, pathetic excuse for a knight. If he wanted to wake up – as _him_ – do you really think I’d be here?”

Frisk shrugged, acknowledging the question for what it was. They could see the fear shivering through the flower. And they’d felt it the second they walked into this room, the thing they didn’t think Chara had seen yet. Perhaps they didn’t want to see it, or perhaps they’d known all along and Frisk was just underestimating how desperate they were.

And it only took five small steps, the flinging back of the curtains, and a single look at the prince’s face to know that the flower hadn’t been lying. There were even petals scattered over his body like a confession, the golden dye crushed on the white fur at the corners of his mouth.

But that wasn’t any of Frisk’s concern. They let Chara have control.

In the backseat of their own mind, they felt rather than saw the flower disappear. The curse was broken as such things usually are, and the prince was blinking his eyes awake as Chara pulled back from him. Their heart was pounding, Frisk could feel.

There were a few tense seconds of uncertainty, of the urge to run even from the person they’d worked this hard to find, but Frisk pushed them down as best they could with a few comforting words.

The prince opened his eyes fully, arms shakily pushing his body up. Still sleep-dazed, he smiled.

“Howdy, Chara.”

His tears mixed with Chara’s on the dust-strewn bed.


End file.
